A US maker of network management systems said yesterday it had received an order from Shanghai Telecom Co for a system that can detect and block telephone calls placed over the Internet.
Shanghai Telecom, which has 6.2 million landlines, plans to use Narus Inc's system to improve its ability to block "unauthorized" Internet calls that connect to its phone system, bypassing its toll structure.
Use of Internet calling, also known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), is growing quickly across the world, threatening the business models of some telephone companies.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission fined a small telephone company that prevented its Internet subscribers from accessing a competing VoIP service, but some countries with state-owned telecommunications companies are taking a different tack.
In China, the government has sided with carriers and allowed them to block VoIP services that compete with the carrier's own products. A recent report in the Financial Times quoted Chinese officials as saying that the government would not issue new licenses for computer-to-phone calling services until 2008.
Steve Bannerman, a spokesman for Mountain View, California-based Narus, said carriers in several countries, including Egypt, are using its software to block gateways that connect VoIP calls to the phone network.
VoIP-blocking software from another US company, Verso Technologies Inc, is being tried out by an unidentified Chinese carrier.
Narus' and Verso's software can be configured to block the use of Skype, eBay Inc's popular VoIP application. However, Shanghai Telecom has not bought that module from Narus.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite